piteous cries too were heard, of the women more especially, as they
passed by their revered temples now beset with armed men, and left
their gods as it were in captivity. After the Albans had evacuated the
town, the Roman soldiery levelled all the public and private buildings
indiscriminately to the ground, and a single hour consigned to
destruction and ruin the work of four hundred years, during which
Alba had stood. The temples of the gods, however--for so it had been
ordered by the king--were spared.

In the meantime Rome increased by the destruction of Alba. The number
of citizens was doubled. The Coelian Mount was added to the city, and,
in order that it might be more thickly populated, Tullus selected it
as a site for his palace, and subsequently took up his abode there.
The leading men of the Albans he enrolled among the patricians, that
that division of the state also might increase, the Tullii, Servilii,
Quinctii, Geganii, Curiatii, Cloelii; and as a consecrated place
of meeting for the order thus augmented by himself he built a
senate-house, which was called Hostilia[30] even down to the time of
our fathers. Further, that all ranks might acquire some additional
strength from the new people, he chose ten troops of horsemen from
among the Albans: he likewise recruited the old legions, and raised
new ones, by additions from the same source. Trusting to this increase
of strength, Tullus declared war against the Sabines, a nation at that
time the most powerful, next to the Etruscans, in men and arms. On
both sides wrongs had been committed, and satisfaction demanded in
vain. Tullus complained that some Roman merchants had been seized in a
crowded market near the temple of Feronia:[31] the Sabines that some
of their people had previously taken refuge in the asylum, and had
been detained at Rome. These were put forward as the causes of the
war. The Sabines, well aware both that a portion of their strength had